History says the Texans will run the ball and protect the quarterback better than they did in 2007. History says the Texans finally may do the basics.

Some teams may take this stuff for granted. Not the Texans. Not after watching quarterbacks get clobbered and running backs get stuffed.

Some of the problems may have to do with a lack of talent on the offensive line, but a lot of it was coaching.

Coaching will no longer be an issue. This 67-year-old rooster of a man will get it right. He has succeeded almost everyplace he has coached, and there’s no reason to think he won’t succeed with the Texans.

He’s one of those coaches that other coaches study and emulate and try to figure out. When college coaches show up at training camp, Alex Gibbs is one of the guys on whom they focus.

Bundle of energy

He’s a bundle of energy and emotion, and his reputation for being tough, demanding and innovative preceded him. Players called other players. What’s he like? Do you know anyone that knows him?

During the first meeting with his offensive linemen, he referred to himself as “an angry little Cherokee.”

“I appreciate a little attitude from a coach,” Pitts said. “He’s intense, a lot of energy. We have to watch his blood pressure out here sometimes.”

Turning serious, he said: “He’s taught me two or three tricks that I’ve really added to the repertoire that I really plan to use this year. They are really going to help me.”

Part of the mystique is that he does few interviews. By not talking, he somehow seems a lot smarter.

“It’s one of the ways he lets the players know he’s all about football,” Kubiak said.

So we’re left with stories about his temper and his brilliance and all the rest.

“He’s a great motivator, very passionate about his job,” Kubiak said. “He has interesting ways of teaching. I don’t know how to explain it. He tends to see the best in each guy and what each guy needs to be the best player he can be.

Secret ways

“Mainly, I think it’s his passion and his commitment to what he’s doing. It rubs off on all his players. He ends up with a group that is very close. How he goes about that, I don’t know the secret.”

Through the years, Gibbs had been both a coach and mentor to Kubiak. Kubiak smiles about it now. There were days he hated the man, days he was amazed by him.

“If you talk to some of his players, you’re going to hear some interesting names for him,” Kubiak said.

This being a family newspaper and all, we’ll skip over the part about the names and skip to the part about Gibbs being the godfather of the zone-blocking scheme that helped the Denver Broncos churn out 1,000-yard running backs.

About the only thing Gibbs has failed at is retirement. He has tried it three different times and come back to either full- or part-time status each time.

His most recent attempt was after the 2006 season when the Atlanta Falcons got rid of Jim Mora, who’d lured him out of retirement.

Gibbs decided he’d had enough. He saw Broadway shows and visited the Smithsonian. He walked the streets of London and saw the beaches of Hawaii.

“I still missed it,” he told the Rocky Mountain News. “I just felt at the end of the day, ‘What did I do today?’ I promised my wife I would try, and I tried. There is no way I could do that.”

Let ’er rip

It’s one of Kubiak’s many strengths that he’s willing to hire coaches willing to challenge him and tell him when he’s wrong.

“Alex will do that and then some,” Kubiak said. “When it comes to the running game, he’s very hard. He’ll rip the linemen for their blocks, rip the quarterback for not carrying out his fake and rip me for not calling the right play.”